Definitions for Venusˈvi nəsVenus

Here are all the possible meanings and translations of the word Venus.

Princeton's WordNet(2.60 / 15 votes)Rate this definition:

Venus(noun)

the second nearest planet to the sun; it is peculiar in that its rotation is slow and retrograde (in the opposite sense of the Earth and all other planets except Uranus); it is visible from Earth as an early `morning star' or an `evening star'

"before it was known that they were the same object the evening star was called Venus and the morning star was called Lucifer"

Venus, Urania(noun)

goddess of love; counterpart of Greek Aphrodite

Venus, genus Venus(noun)

type genus of the family Veneridae: genus of edible clams with thick oval shells

Wiktionary(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

Venus(ProperNoun)

the goddess of love, beauty, and natural productivity

Venus(ProperNoun)

The second planet in our solar system, named for the goddess; represented in astronomy and astrology by u2640.

Venus(ProperNoun)

Sexual activity or intercourse; sex, lust, venery.

venus(Noun)

Any of the bivalve molluscs in the genus Venus or family Veneridae.

Origin: From Venus

Webster Dictionary(1.25 / 4 votes)Rate this definition:

Venus(noun)

the goddess of beauty and love, that is, beauty or love deified

Venus(noun)

one of the planets, the second in order from the sun, its orbit lying between that of Mercury and that of the Earth, at a mean distance from the sun of about 67,000,000 miles. Its diameter is 7,700 miles, and its sidereal period 224.7 days. As the morning star, it was called by the ancients Lucifer; as the evening star, Hesperus

Venus(noun)

the metal copper; -- probably so designated from the ancient use of the metal in making mirrors, a mirror being still the astronomical symbol of the planet Venus

Venus(noun)

any one of numerous species of marine bivalve shells of the genus Venus or family Veneridae. Many of these shells are large, and ornamented with beautiful frills; others are smooth, glossy, and handsomely colored. Some of the larger species, as the round clam, or quahog, are valued for food

Origin: [L. Venus, -eris, the goddess of love, the planet Venus.]

Freebase(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows. Because Venus is an inferior planet from Earth, it never appears to venture far from the Sun: its elongation reaches a maximum of 47.8°. Venus reaches its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset, for which reason it has been referred to by ancient cultures as the Morning Star or Evening Star.
Venus is a terrestrial planet and is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" because of their similar size, gravity, and bulk composition. It has also been shown to be very different from Earth in other respects. It has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96% carbon dioxide. The atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is 92 times that of Earth's. With a mean surface temperature of 735 K, Venus is by far the hottest planet in the Solar System. It has no carbon cycle to lock carbon back into rocks and surface features, nor does it seem to have any organic life to absorb it in biomass. Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light. Venus may have possessed oceans in the past, but these would have vaporized as the temperature rose due to a runaway greenhouse effect. The water has most probably photodissociated, and, because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field, the free hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind. Venus's surface is a dry desertscape interspersed with slab-like rocks and periodically refreshed by volcanism.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

Venus

vē′nus, n. (Roman myth.) the goddess of love, originally of spring, patron of flower-gardens, but identified with the Greek Aphrodite: beauty and love deified: sexual commerce, venery: the most brilliant of the planets, second in order from the sun.—Venus's flower-basket, a beautiful glass sponge; Venus's fly-trap (see Dionæa); Venus's girdle, a tæniate ctenophoran.—Mount of Venus (palm.), the elevation at the base of the thumb. [L., orig. personified from venus, desire; akin to venerāri, to worship.]

The Nuttall Encyclopedia(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

Venus

the Roman goddess of love, of wedded love, and of beauty (originally of the spring), and at length identified with the Greek Aphrodité (q. v.); she was regarded as the tutelary goddess of Rome, and had a temple to her honour in the Forum.

Venus

an interior planet of the solar system, revolving in an orbit outside that of Mercury and within that of the earth, nearly as large as the latter; is 67 millions of miles from the sun, round which it revolves in 224 days, while it takes 23¼ hours to rotate on its own axis; it is the brightest of the heavenly bodies, and appears in the sky now as the morning star, now as the evening star, according as it rises before the sun or sets after it, so that it is always seen either in the E. or the W.; when right between us and the sun it is seen moving as a black spot on the sun's disk, a phenomenon known as "Transit of Venus," the last instance of which occurred in 1882, and that will not occur again till after 105½ years.

U.S. National Library of Medicine(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

Venus

The second planet in order from the sun. It has no known natural satellites. It is one of the four inner or terrestrial planets of the solar system.

Editors Contribution(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

Venus

One of the planets in the Solar System.

The Venusian surface was a subject of speculation until some of its secrets were revealed by planetary science in the 20th century.